


A Three-Body Problem

by PerfidiousFate



Category: Power of Three - Diana Wynne Jones
Genre: Blood, Character Study, Dorig Culture, Gen, Legends, Rebuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-05
Updated: 2015-09-05
Packaged: 2018-04-19 05:00:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4733624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PerfidiousFate/pseuds/PerfidiousFate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some sacrifices are worth it. </p><p>Or: Three Stories That King Hathil Heard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Three-Body Problem

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Firerose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Firerose/gifts).



> Reading your prompt gave me a good excuse to reread this wonderful book, so thank you for that! I adore The Power of Three, no matter how many times I reread it, and I was glad to find someone who feels similarly. I tried my best to emulate some of the general feel of the book, and hopefully succeeded at least somewhat - writing about Hathil in particular was an interesting challenge! Thank you for the interesting prompts.
> 
> I hope you enjoy this story <3

There is a story that Dorig have, that they tell to their children. It goes like this:

A long time ago, there was a woman called Mhorrin, and she was a Wise Woman. Mhorrin was very intelligent, but she was also kind, beautiful and a little wicked. From all over the Moor, people came to see her. This was before they lived underwater – when they could still see the Sun and the Moon whenever they so wished, and not just the endless Earth.

The Lymen were a fair lot, but they used words and magic, and they were tricky. Clever, but in the worst way possible. They seduced and they fooled the people, and they multiplied and multiplied until they were crowding people out. Things soon grew violent.

The people were worried. They knew that unless they fought, they would all be exterminated. So they came and asked Mhorrin for help.

Mhorrin listened to them carefully. After she heard their petition, she thought for three long days and three long nights. After that, she came back out to the waiting people. And she said something along the lines of, “We are the People of the Moon, and we are no match for the People of the Sun – they will burn us away, because we can’t resist the pull of their strange, strange power. But we have something they don’t – we are favored by the Old Power, and they only have the Middle. Listen to me, and I will save our people.”

They agreed, and so she walked outside. The Moon was out in full force. Mhorrin took a blade – a silver blade, shining bright in the light – and she said, “There is a place below the water where our people can live. For a thousand years, we must hide ourselves in these halls; it is our only chance against the Lymen."

And then she gave her instructions to the young man next to her, who became the first King, King Hirt. And the young man took the knife and, with shaking hands, he cut off Mhorrin’s beautiful locks of hair; he burnt them silently, waiting until the knife turned black. And then, in full view of the Moon, he slit Mhorrin’s throat. She died with a smile on her face.

The Old Power accepted her sacrifice, and it blinded the Lymen temporarily, allowing the people to move underground. Moreover, the future king suddenly knew exactly where to go, for Mhorrin’s death had given him the Sight. And he lead the people down below, into the empty halls where indeed there was space for the people to live. And the Lymen, who could not change shape, dared not follow them below. The people were saved.

And so Mhorrin became the first sacrifice to the Old Power. The people mourned her; they resolved to bury her under the light of the Moon, for she loved the Moon as she loved little else. And they resolved to make full of use of the gift she gave them – the halls beneath the water. And so they did.

To this day, they still tell children the story of her bravery. Of their origins; the story of their people.

Hathil’s brother told him that first story; this, of course, was before he died.  

* * *

Hathil was very young when his brother was murdered. Seven – just young enough to idolize his older brother, and just old enough to understand the meaning of _revenge_. It was a powerful combination. Perhaps, if it had happened just a few years later or a few years earlier, the entire story would have turned out differently.

But he was seven, and his brother was murdered, and to Hathil it seemed like his blood had risen to fill the entire hall, drowning them all.

He certainly felt like he was drowning, walking around and numbly watching the funeral rites. His people didn’t bury bodies; they couldn’t afford to, with the lack of space. They burned them instead, offering them up to the three Powers and murmuring somber words. By tradition, it was done when the Moon was highest in the sky, before the first Sun rose on the body.

Hathil’s brother had died during daytime, so they had a few hours to prepare. The entirety of the day, the people milled around, grief in their voices. Hathil’s parents were both stormy and quiet. Everyone was busy, with preparations, gathering food for the wake and Songmen for the farewell song.

Hathil had wandered around as if in a dream, everyone too busy to pay much attention to him. He felt numb, and as if there was an oppressive weight pressing down on his soul. He felt as if the blood was rising up to drown him. The weight didn’t lift until he went up to the surface to see where his brother’s body had lain, and had a good long cry.

But while the weight had lessened, the blood didn’t leave him. It had swallowed up the entirety of the people, this blood. Even if nobody but him could see it. It had risen to fill the halls where he had once so innocently played, and it had only thickened when he watched his brother’s small body turn to ashes, the Songmen chanting their low, slow dirge.

 Hathil didn’t know much about the three Powers, not then, but he knew just enough to be absolutely convinced that this blood, the aching weight on his soul, was the work of the Old Power. And if he ever wanted to leech it out, have his people escape it – well, the Old Power demands life.

And if a life must be given, it only made sense for it to be the Lyman who had murdered his brother.

 Hathil had gone to the surface the day after his brother’s funeral, exhausted but determined. He returned there every day for weeks, returned to the place where his brother had died. It was their favorite place on the surface – they used to sun their gold together there. Perhaps if he had been there, Hathil mused bitterly, things might have turned out differently.

It was only a month later that he’d learned of what had happened there from Adara, a Lyman girl. Learned the truth of his brother’s murder.

The death of his brother was a birth of something else entirely within him – something hot and strange and dark. The anger that Hathil would carry with him for decades onwards was born that day, with the promise that he made to the stones. The promise of blood.

He held on to that anger. To his promise. Made it his own, a red hot spark in his belly that he’d never let go of. 

A fine start to a bloody story.

* * *

Hathil had four sisters, and only one (dead) brother. He used to bond with his brother over being the only boys in the midst of a horde of girls and their mothers. Being a boy was special in general – there were a lot more girls born than boys, which is why everyone had so many wives. Apparently, in the olden days there were equal amounts of boys to girls – Hathil could barely imagine that.

He asked his friend, Cymica, about it once, when he was ten. Maybe it was one of the things he’d be able to fix when he was king, one way or the other. Cymica was a year older than him, and very clever, although sometimes annoying so.

His parents didn’t push, but he rather thought they wanted him to marry Cymica. He didn’t mind the thought; there were worse girls to marry. Cymica and him were friends, at least.

“Boys are harder to carry,” Cymica had explained to him, voice a little scornful as it often was when girls that age talked about boys. “They’re a lot more fragile than girls, when they’re born. And there’s too many people here – they get sick. Besides.” And there, her voice grew dark. “It’s the Giants. They’re evil. They use _poison_ to grow their crops. It runs off into the water, and it gets all mixed in and people drink it down without ever realizing that they’re drinking death.” 

Hathil twitched his fingers. It didn’t surprise him, although it angered him deeply – of course the Giants got the food, and the people got death trickled down from their leftovers. Another hurt to add to his belly full of anger.

Well. He’d change it, when he was king. He’d change it all, and stop the blood from drowning them all.

* * *

For the next several years, Hathil plotted the downfall of the Lymen. His plan for revenge consumed his childhood; plans that he had to compose in secret, away from the prying eyes of his attendants. He grew up in secrecy and darkness, Hathil did.

There were the practical reasons for the secrecy – his brother was meant to be king, not him, and now that he was gone the honor had fallen to Hathil. Hathil accepted the role, and the ensuing attention from everyone around him, not entirely without regret. While there was much to be said for being the king’s son, being the king’s heir was an entirely different story. And Hathil had wanted to be a hero when he grew up, like from the legends of old – he wanted to explore the surface, discover forgotten secrets and chase out the Lymen. The future king, however, could not afford to be an adventurer.

Hathil missed the lost opportunity, but he shoved the thought away whenever it came up. He’d be able to get much more done being the king anyway. And he was clever enough to take advantage of the opportunity to do some real good for his people. 

...But he wondered, sometimes, alone in the dark and imagining blood staining his hands, if he wasn’t what was being lost. If the anger consuming him was not entirely unlike the Songmen taking their sacrifice. If his promise – to wipe out the kin of Orban – wasn’t dooming him just the same as it was dooming them.

He wondered, sometimes. But it didn’t matter.

“Some things are worth a sacrifice,” he whispered, thinking of the woman in the story his brother had told him, and steeling his heart.

* * *

Once upon a time, or so the Lymen legend went, the magic that the People of the Sun had was a lot more common. It was rare that at least one son or daughter in each family did not possess a Gift. The goldsmiths had their work cut out for them, making all the double-twist and triple-twist collars that those with Gifts were entitled to.

But the people were growing complacent, with the Gifts. They fancied that knowing the future meant that they knew everything, and that putting Thoughts on things meant that they controlled Life itself. They grew arrogant and careless.

It was King Ban, then a Prince, who had grown up with the Sight Unasked, who saw the dangers that the Gifts posed to the people. It was he who knew beyond any doubt that things could not continue as they have, or it would mean doom.

Ages ago, some kings attempted to kill all people with Gifts, believing them to be a danger to the people and the Powers. Not King Ban. King Ban called for a gathering of all the people of the Moor, under the bright light of the midday Sun. And there, he explained what he knew, and what must be done.

Some people protested; but his words were too convincing. He debated every single one, answering their questions cleverly and without losing his patience. Eventually, every single person grew to believe the truth of his Sight Unasked. So, one by one, all those Gifted came forward and - starting with King Ban himself - they drew blood from their palms and dripped it onto the meadow.

With the amount of blood they drew, the grass around them died – and from then on, inexplicably, the number of babies born with Gifts dropped drastically. The people lost their arrogance, and began living normal lives again, uncertain of the Future and happy that way. And so it goes.

Adara told him the second story. It was a story passed down in her family; her grandfather had told it to her, and he heard it from his grandfather before him. She told this story to her kids, too. And now she was telling it to Hathil, whose collar she wore.

If this wasn’t irony – the blood dripping on the Earth, a sacrifice without a life, a Lyman who was his sworn friend – Hathil wasn’t sure what was.

* * *

The day the curse was lifted was spent in revelry, people and Lymen and even the Giants all laughing and joking and dancing together. The Songmen struck up their harps, along with the Chanter the Lymen brought. Hathil’s oldest daughter, Himma, sang with her strong, clear voice, the old songs of their people. She always was the one who cared most about their history, their culture. Hathil never had much time for it himself, but he respected her for it.

Later that night, when he was resting in his chambers and contemplating the events that had occurred – he’d nearly killed Adara’s son, and somehow gained the Halls of the Kings as a result – two of their visitors paid him a visit.

 Adara, for all that she was seven when he last saw her, looked much the same – strikingly pretty, with dark hair and clear gray eyes and a compassionate look about her. She wore his collar. Gest, who he’d seen much more recently, although still years ago, had changed a great deal more. He still had lines of laughter around his mouth and in his eyes, but he looked much more confident, much more determined. A true leader, Hathil mused, somewhat sarcastically.

“Hey, fire eater,” Gest had greeted him, before sitting down next to him. Hathil’s leg was still injured – the Giant magic was truly a formidable thing – so he didn’t mind the breach of etiquette too much. Besides, they had exchanged collars. He fingered the gold band around his neck automatically, as he'd done since he first got it.

Adara, on the other hand, didn’t sit down. She stared down at him, a thoughtful look in her eyes.

Hathil looked back at her unflinchingly. He found that he still liked her, even after all these years. In another world, he might have fallen in love with her, for all that she was a Lyman and he was a person.

Still, he fought down a wave of disquiet. His leg hurt, and Gest was shooting him an affable smile, and he couldn’t shake the sense of everything not quite gelling together. He had sworn to the Powers, after all. But Orban’s blood was still unspilled. Hathil had outgrown most of his childhood fancies, particularly the ones about the blood rising to drown them all, but in his heart he hadn’t let go of the notion entirely.

There was too much power in that anger to just let it _go_.

It seemed that Adara had a sense of what he was thinking, judging by the way she was examining him. Gest, on the other hand, seemed blissfully oblivious to the tension.

“Come, Adara, sit,” he said jovially. “It’s time for us to catch up with an old friend!” He laid a hand on Hathil’s shoulder and shot him a winning smile. Hathil couldn’t help but smile back wanly; perhaps, he mused, the obliviousness was a deliberate one.

Adara hesitated, but then she sat down near them too. She looked at Hathil again, and smiled. This time, it was tinged with some wonder.

“I see I was right,” she told him. “You make an awfully good king.”

Hathil was surprised, and showed it. “Even though I tried to sacrifice your son?” he asked, eyebrow raised. Gest winced; clearly, he was still not completely over the thought.

Adara shook her head though. “No,” she said. “Because you didn’t.” And she gave him another wondering look which made Hathil feel somewhat ashamed of himself.

 _Some things are worth a sacrifice_ , he thought, but this time the thought sat uneasily. His fingers twitched; death was the legacy of his people, their inheritance and their power and their Gift, their curse and their price.

The death of their crown prince had doomed the Moor, for Hathil had demanded death in return. His brother’s blood flooded his thoughts, his world, his memories until they were all tinged red. In order to stop it from consuming his people, he swore to eliminate the cause – and whether he happened to sacrifice himself in the process, well, it seemed a worthy price to pay.

Now, though…With his brother’s dying curse lifted, and his son friends with a Lyman and a Giant…Hathil wondered.

Adara saw him struggling, and kindly, decided to change the subject. “Your son is a very special boy,” she said. “Tell me, does he give you a lot of trouble?”

And then Hathil was drawn from his thoughts, of blood and death and sacrifice, into another subject. “To no end,” he said, feelingly, and Gest laughed and said his own kids would be the death of him, and then they were all talking like they’d known each other for years. Which actually made sense, because they really had.

For a moment, they were just three people: orbiting around each other for years and years, never really making contact. Until now.

What a strange thought.

* * *

Getting used to the new entente between the three people was – trying, for lack of a better term.

For one, Adara started visiting him a lot, frequently accompanied by her husband or one of her children. She soon got her own adoring fan club of those who would ask her advice on various matters – she was well known for her Wisdom, after all. Often, it would take her an entire morning to even make her way to the king’s hall, with the way she was mobbed.

“I really don’t mind,” she said when Hathil brought it up one day. “I enjoy helping your people out with their problems, what little I can.”

Hathil wished she wasn’t so likeable. It would make friendship with her and Gest much more bearable.

Negotiation was tricky. While their accord was new and filled with hope, it was a fragile one; Hathil was still suspicious of the Lymen, and couldn’t help but make certain that it was really okay for his people to come up and sun their collars, or for Halla to climb trees, or for Hafny to spend a week at Garholt.

Adara was patient with him. She never begrudged him his suspicion, or his sarcasm. She just answered affirmatively to every one of his questions, never losing her cool.

The Giants were included in the negotiations, too. Sometimes, the Giant known as Mr. Claybury – or the Giant Mr. Masterfield, although that was rarer – would come down and talk to him about their plans for the Halls of the Kings, or for the Moor at large. That was unnerving in an entirely different way than talking to Lymen was unnerving.

“What?” Mr. Claybury had exclaimed when once, Hathil had offhandedly mentioned the poison water to him. “In the _Moor_? That won’t do. That won’t do at all. I’ll call the Environment Agency as soon as I get back. Goodness me, to think that we didn’t catch it!” And so it happened that the poison water was scheduled to be cleaned, made pure and safe for the people once more. It would take some time, but it would be made safe.

Cymica had hugged him when she heard, face bright and happy. His first wife. She couldn’t believe it, the stroke of luck that had befallen them.

Hathil couldn’t really believe it either. He thought about the poison water, the legacy of death that had been given to the people, and how it was all…going away. Just like that.

Giants and Lymen still made no sense to him; he imagined being a stag, hunted by the Lymen, running circles around them and hoping for a stroke of luck. The way they all circled each other was still cautious; they all trusted each other, but they didn’t really _trust_ each other. Three peoples who were completely unalike – the people of the Moon, the Sun, and the Earth.

But if this was the result of the negotiation – Hathil could deal with it. Some sacrifices, after all, were worth making.

For the first time since his brother died, something like hope flickered in his chest.

* * *

Hathil had trouble understanding his only son, for all that he loved him. In truth, Hafny reminded him of his brother (he ignored the stab of guilty grief he always felt when he realized he couldn’t remember his brother’s face). Hafny was clever, headstrong and kind – three traits that caused Hathil no end of trouble, no matter how much he may have respected them.

“I don’t know where he gets it from,” he complained to Hafny’s mother, Gaela, when they were sharing a drink. Gaela only tossed her silver-blond hair back, and laughed.

“Where all boys get their inclinations from,” she said. “Their fathers.”

Hathil snorted. “Seems like you’re trying to pawn off all responsibility on me,” he observed.

“Perhaps!” Gaela said, laughing once more. “You do deserve a fair share of it, though.”

Hathil couldn’t well argue with that, although he pretended to be offended. Gaela saw right through him – for all that she was the youngest of his wives, she could be surprisingly perceptive. She and Cymica got on too well for anyone’s comfort. Even worse, she’d befriended Adara instantly – both Hafny and Gair had expressed horror at the revelation that their mothers were good friends, but at that point nothing could be done, and Gaela and Adara were often found chatting late into the night.

Hafny liked to tell him all about the Giants and the Lymen, in the rare occasions when neither of them were particularly busy. Hathil wondered if he should tell his son that there was no need – Gest and Adora visited him often enough, brimming with stories and jokes aplenty about the people of the Moor, let alone his Chief Songman who seemingly did nothing but learn stories from Lymen – but he decided against it. Let Hafny have his fun; better this than him running loose with Halla, wreaking havoc. Hathil would limit himself to only the occasional sarcastic comment, although he had trouble keeping that resolution.

Hafny was apparently brimming with knowledge on the world of the Giants and Lymen – knowledge that Hathil secretly suspected he only had because of Gair’s interest in the subject (a thought which he deliberately did not examine too closely). He liked to talk about Lymen traditions, which stretched back centuries, or the Giants’ myriad of cultures and languages. He especially liked to talk about their magic.

“The Giants can fly,” he’d say, delighted, and missing Hathil’s look of horror at the information. “They built these giant metal tubes with wings called ‘planes’ – they can go thousands of miles in a few hours! Cloud-paths are actually the trails planes leave behind when they fly.”

Or, “The other day, Ceri put the Thought to a huge boulder. He bent it into the shape of a heart, and presented it to one of his admirers. Gair said their parents gave him a horrible scolding, but when he came out, he made a rose out of oak, and presented it with a wink to a pretty girl. Everyone just about swooned!”

One day, he’d shown up, eyes wide and luminous, and said, “Did you know that the Giants can divine the Powers?”

Hathil, who had been in his chambers by himself and was in the middle of sharpening his spear and enjoying a rare moment of peace, rolled his eyes. “Really, Hafny,” he said, chuckling, and only feeling a little sorry when he saw Hafny get offended. “Don’t believe everything you hear. It’s impossible to divine the Powers.” He pointed a finger at the Sun by reflex, before going back to his sharpening.

Hafny blew his cheeks out in annoyance, as if he were twelve again rather than the sixteen. “No, it’s true!” he exclaimed. “Gerald was telling me all about it. He’s studying it in school – that’s where the Giant children go to learn from people who are kind of like Songmen and Wise Women. He says they’ve examined the skies with great big magnifying glasses, and they know all about how the sun and the moon work. All math-e-mati-cally.” He pronounced that last word very slowly and deliberately, as if he was making very sure he was saying it correctly. Then, misinterpreting Hathil’s dirty look, he got defensive: “What? Gerald said that explaining things to me helps him study. Apparently I ask him all sorts of questions that help him think of things in new ways. Gair too.”

Hathil cared very, very little whether or not his son helped Gerald study. When he informed Hafny of that, Hafny rolled his eyes at him – Hathil would’ve been insulted, if he hadn’t been so amused at the nerve of his boy – and declared that he was going to go and talk to his mother about it instead.

“I’m sure I’ll cope,” Hathil said blandly. He didn’t show it, but he was a little unnerved at the thought of Giant magic being able to chart the Three Powers. He wondered if they could also divine the Old Power, the Middle, and the New. He remembered the blood, and the sacrifice it demanded, before shoving that thought away.

 His son turned to leave, but before he did so, he glanced back at Hathil. “Gerald was learning about something called the three-body problem,” Hafny said thoughtfully. “All about how it’s impossible to accurately predict the movements of the Sun, the Moon and the Earth in relation to each other. It’s thanks to this power called gravity, which makes them stick together.”

And then he left, leaving Hathil staring after him, doubts swirling in his mind.

* * *

As much as he tried to pretend it didn’t bother him, it did. The three body problem. So the next time Adara visited him, with her elder two children trailing behind her - Ayna smiling brightly and wickedly at him, and Gair looking awkward as he always did when he saw Hathil = he asked her about it.

Adara smiled at him. “Oh, Hafny talks to you about Gerald’s lessons too? Gair gets excited about them as well. It’s all he can talk about at times.” She sounded proud.

Hathil shrugged, non-committal. They had long since parted from their children, and were taking a walk through the markets, his guards trailing beside them – the people bowed reverently whenever they passed, to him and Adara both. He didn’t pay them any mind. He continued: “Surely there’s no higher Power holding the Moon, the Sun and the Earth together.” He didn’t say the word gravity; it withered on his tongue.

Adara seemed to know what he meant without saying it. “Of course there is,” she said serenely. “How else would they all connect to each other?” She looked at some of the merchants they were passing by. An old lady was selling honey, imported from Garholt. She was getting a lot of customers, it seemed like. Everyone enjoyed the taste of the sweet syrup. Children swarmed around her, laughing and begging for a taste. Not for the first time, Hathil found himself wondering at his luck; he felt somewhat dizzy with the sensation. No more blood flooding his halls.

“I wouldn’t have thought they needed to connect at all,” he said, watching the children revel.

There was a pause, as Adara contemplated what to say. “That story I told you,” she said eventually. She sounded thoughtful. “About King Ban and the Gifts. It wasn’t the Sun that saved the people. Or King Ban himself.”

“Oh? What was it then?”

“People,” Adara said, and then smiled broadly. There was a doll at her feet; some child had dropped it. She leaned down and picked it up before handing it to the girl, who blushed, muttered thank you, and then ran off. “It was the people all agreeing to give up something they valued for the sake of everyone else. All of them working together, that’s a kind of Power as well. At least, that’s what I always thought,” she added, modestly.

Hathil opened his mouth to argue – any few people could pool their blood together; it wasn’t a miracle without being dedicated to one of the Powers – but something made him stop. He flexed his fingers, and thought about it.

About the Old Power. And his brother, dying, cursing the entire Moor. And how he’d been drowning in blood his whole life, to the point where the only escape seemed to be to spill more blood, near indiscriminately.

How the Old Power demanded sacrifice, and how he’d been willing to offer himself up for the sake of everyone. How death seemed to be the only answer.

And about Adara telling him a story. Gest giving him his collar. His son brimming with enthusiasm about his friends. A Giant offering to leech the poison from their water, and to pump water out of their halls; to give their people hope.

“He did say,” Adara added, and it was like he was back to being seven, stricken with grief and liking this kind Lyman girl, but it was also completely unlike it at the same time – they’d both grown up now, after all. “He did say that it was impossible for them to accurately predict how the Sun, the Moon and the Earth all interact. There are some powers too mysterious for even the Giants.”

The Old Power, the Middle, and the New: all demanding sacrifice, even if the type of sacrifice wasn’t immediately apparent. Predictable.

“Gravity, huh.” Hathil looked around - at Adara giving him a kind, understanding look, at the children laughing with no trace of blood rising up to wipe their happiness away.

Maybe it wasn’t so bad, this Power that united the Sun, Moon and Earth. Not if it tasted like honey rather than blood.

Hathil smiled, and felt hope course through his veins for the first time in decades.

* * *

His son Hafny told him the last story; apparently, he’d heard it from the Giants. This wasn’t actually a surprise anymore, no matter how much Hathil rolled his eyes at it.

The story went like this:

Once upon a time, there was a Giant Prince called Pwyll. On a hunt, he accidentally offended Arawn, lord of Annwn, the Giant Otherworld. In order to atone, he agreed to switch places with Arawn for a year and a day, during which time he did many good deeds and earned Arawn’s friendship and respect.

Of course, Hathil wasn’t actually a king of the Otherworld, even if he lived underground and was quick to anger, and he wasn’t about to give his throne to either a Lyman or a Giant, even for only a year. Besides, they’d earned his friendship and respect without any convoluted shenanigans needed – they earned it just by being decent people.

So this story wasn’t actually applicable to Hathil and his strange, winding life – it was just something he could tell his children, and his children’s children, and his children’s children’s children, as his people prospered and grew into a new life filled with sunlight and honey.

Sometimes a story is just a story. No sacrifice needed, whether life or blood or a constant anger at the pit of your belly.

No sacrifice at all.

**Author's Note:**

> Some notes:  
> \- The poison water is referring to pesticides, which apparently can affect secondary sex ratios.  
> \- I'm sorry there wasn't much Adara in this story - I tried to put more of her in, but the non-Adara parts grew in scope. She's pretty much the best though - I love her to death. Maybe next time!  
> \- I also kind of started shipping Hathil/Adara/Gest throughout the course of this story. Oops?  
> \- The story at the end, with Pwyll and Arawn, come from a real Welsh legend. Of course, I paraphrased it very much - sorry for any inaccuracies.  
> \- The three-body problem refers to the problem of exactly solving for the motions of three (or more bodies) interacting through gravitational/electric attraction. The specific case of the Sun, the Moon and the Earth is a classic example of it, although not the only one. I felt the concept would work well with this fandom.


End file.
